Sami Amin Al-Arian (born January 14, 1958 in Kuwait) is a Palestinian computer engineer who was convicted of conspiracy to help Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Al-Arian, a former university professor, was arrested by the United States government in 2003 on charges of funding terrorists. He was acquitted on eight of the 17 charges against him in December 2005 after a six month trial with three co-defendants. On April 14, 2006 Al-Arian pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and agreed to be deported. In return, federal prosecutors agreed to drop the remaining eight charges against him. Al-Arian was sentenced to the 57 months in prison and given credit for time served. He was to serve the balance of 19 months and then be deported. However, Al-Arian is currently serving an 18-month sentence for civil contempt of court after refusing to testify against former associates. The time 18-month sentence is not credited towards his remaining criminal sentence.

Biography

Al-Arian was born in Kuwait. He emigrated with his family to Egypt in 1966, and traveled to the United States in 1975 at the age of 17 to attend university. He obtained his Bachelor's Degree, graduating with honors in 1978 with a major in Electrical Engineering, and completed his Master's Degree and Ph.D. in computer engineering in 1980 and 1985 respectively. In 1986, he was hired as a professor in the Computer Sciences Department at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Dr. Al-Arian is married to Nahla Al-Arian and has five children, including Abdullah Al-Arian. Abdullah Al-Arian was the subject of national media attention when he was escorted out of the White House by the Secret Service in June, 2001. At the time, the younger Al-Arian was an intern for U.S. Rep. David E. Bonior; the White House later issued a public apology over the incident.

Al-Arian played a prominent role in establishing a number of Arab and Islamic institutions over the past quarter of a century. These include the Arab Muslim Youth League in 1977, the Islamic Community Center in Tampa, and the Florida Islamic Academy, which is an Islamic school for students in Tampa and its suburbs. He was also imam of his mosque. He also co-founded the Islamic Association for Palestine in 1981. Its daughter organization is the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. InfoCom Corporation, another organization affiliated with IAP, had its offices raided by the U.S. government.

Al-Arian is considered to have been among the most active lecturers in North America in the 1980s and 1990s on the subjects of the Palestinian cause, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the relationship between Islam and the West. He helped to found the World Islamic Study Enterprise (WISE) and the Islamic Committee for Palestine (ICP), also known as the Islamic Concern Project, in 1990. Over a period of five years, WISE and ICP issued 20 volumes and several books, as well as sponsoring several conferences.

Al-Arian was also involved in U.S. national politics, having met with then-candidate George W. Bush at a campaign event in Florida in March 2000 where Bush and his wife, Laura, posed for a photo with Al-Arian and his family members. Al-Arian later claimed to have spoken to Bush about the government use of "secret evidence" in deportation proceedings against accused terrorists. When Bush subsequently brought up the issue in a debate with Al Gore, Al-Arian was reportedly "thrilled--and began registering local Muslims for the Republican Party and praising Bush at local mosques." He also lobbied Congress on civil liberties matters, contributed thousands of dollars to the campaigns of influential members of Congress, and renounced violence during television appearances. In June, 2001, Al-Arian joined 150 Muslim-American activists in a White House briefing with Karl Rove.

Ties to terrorism

Accusations that WISE and ICP were fronts for terrorists were made in a series of articles in the Tampa Tribune. ICP sponsored several conferences in the late 1980s and early 1990s, in which terrorists attended, including Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, who was implicated in the 1993 New York City landmark bomb plot. Other attendees included Sheikh Abdel Aziz Odeh, spiritual leader of Islamic Jihad. In 1995, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) submitted an affidavit for a search warrant against ICP, WISE, and Al-Arian, which alleged that ICP and WISE were fronts that were used to help individuals to obtain visas and enter the United States.

In February 2003, the FBI accused al-Arian and seven others of being involved since 1984 in a criminal organization that assists the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement. The authorities added that this organization had been responsible for hundreds of terrorist acts in Israel, resulting in over 100 deaths, and that Al-Arian was the jihad movement's chief of operations in the United States. Al-Arian denied any connection with terrorist activities.

Following the publicity regarding his non-academic activities as well as the criminal allegations, he was suspended with pay from his university position, while an investigation was conducted for the university by William Reese Smith, prominent attorney and former president of the American Bar Association. Shortly thereafter, the university formally notified him of its intent to terminate his employment. The Smith investigation discovered no evidence against Al-Arian, who resumed teaching. At that time, federal authorities were unable to comment on Al-Arian's status. As Dr. Al-Arian was a tenured professor, both the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and United Faculty of Florida (the faculty union) opposed the actions of the university administration in Al-Arian's case. After announcing its intent to fire Dr. Al-Arian, the case hung in suspense for many months. The university fired Dr. Al-Arian shortly after his Federal indictment and arrest.

In the 2004 Florida U.S. Senate campaign, former USF president Betty Castor was attacked for failing to fire Al-Arian at the time of the WISE flap. She replied that, acting on the information available at the time, there was insufficient evidence to justify firing a tenured professor.

Investigation

The FBI began investigating Al-Arian's alleged connections to Islamist groups on the US list of terrorist organizations in the early 1990s, establishing its first wiretaps for Al-Arian in 1993. In 1995, the FBI began requesting information on Al-Arian and two other professors from USF campus police while refraining from providing the local authorities with any details of the investigation. In 1996, USF officials received more information on the investigation that led university president Betty Castor to suspend Al-Arian, but no charges were brought against him.

Investigators did not share recordings and other information gathered for intelligence purposes with the criminal staff of the FBI in the late 1990s, and the university's internal report by Tampa lawyer William Reece Smith did not suggest any grounds for USF to dismiss him.

On December 19, 2001, University president Judy Genshaft Genshaft initiated proceedings to revoke Al-Arian's tenure and terminate his employment at the university. Genshaft refused to speak publicly about the Al-Arian case; a spokesman indicated that Genshaft was attempting to fire Al-Arian for supporting terrorism and damaging the university's reputation.

The University filed a lawsuit seeking a pre-emptive judgement that firing Al-Arian would not violate his First Amendment rights in August of 2002. The suit was summarily dismissed on December 15, 2002, with the judge indicating that such an advisory ruling is not within the scope of the court's function.

Arrest

On February 20, 2003, the FBI arrested Al-Arian after indicting him and seven others on 50 charges including some related to terrorism. United States Attorney GeneralJohn Ashcroft alleged at a press conference that Al-Arian was the North American head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the secretary of the PIJ's international organization. His trial was set for May 16, 2005. Al-Arian's lawyers stated that the delay between arrest and trial constitutes a violation of Al-Arian's right under the United States Constitution to a speedy trial. In response, Judge James Moody cited what he believed to be the complexity and uniqueness of the case as reasons for setting the trial in 2005.

On February 26, Genshaft announced that Al-Arian had been fired on the basis that his non-academic activities created a conflict of interest with the university. Allegations from his indictment were also cited.

Trial

Al-Arian's Federal District Court trial in Tampa commenced in June, 2005. He was tried along with Ghassan Ballut, Hatim Fariz and Sameeh Hammoudeh. At trial, FBI agent Kerry Myers testified that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad had planned an attack inside the United States but said all information about the plot was classified and he could not discuss it. Under cross-examination, Myers admitted that Palestinian Islamic Jihad had never carried out an attack outside Israel and the "occupied territories." Agent Myers also testified that during its 10-year investigation of Al-Arian and his three co-defendants, the FBI intercepted 472,239 telephone calls on 18 tapped lines but none involved any discussion of an attack against the United States or show advanced knowledge of any attacks in the Middle East. Furthermore, the conversations occurred before Palestinian Islamic Jihad was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1995.

The six-month trial featured more than 80 witnesses and 400 transcripts of intercepted phone conversations and faxes. At the end of the prosecution's case, Al-Arian's attorneys rested without offering a defense. On December 6, 2005, after 13 days of deliberations, the jury acquitted him on eight of 17 counts, while remaining deadlocked 10-2 in favor of acquittal on the other nine. Of fifty-one charges against the four men, not one resulted in a conviction; Ballut and Hammoudeh were acquitted on all charges.

Plea agreement

On March 2, 2006, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy "to make or receive contributions of funds, goods or services to or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Specially Designated Terrorist [sic], in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371." In return, the U.S. Attorney agreed to dismiss the other eight remaining charges in the superseding indictment, agreed not to charge Al-Arian with any other crimes, entered no recommendation of a fine, and recommended "that the defendant receive a sentence at the low end of the applicable guideline." As part of the deal, Al-Arian agreed to expedited deportation. The plea agreement was unsealed and accepted by Judge James S. Moody on April 17, 2006. Al-Arian's sentencing was scheduled for May 1, 2006. Al-Arian remained in custody pending his sentencing and deportation.

The deal came after 11 years of FBI investigations, wiretaps and searches, three years of trial preparation by federal prosecutors and a six-month trial, during which time Al-Arian has spent more than three years in jail, most of it in solitary confinement. Amnesty International said Al-Arian's pre-trial detention conditions "appeared to be 'gratuitously punitive' " and stated "the restrictions imposed on Dr Al-Arian appeared to go beyond what were necessary on security grounds and were inconsistent with international standards for humane treatment."

Al-Arian admitted that he raised money for the Islamic Jihad and conspired to hide the identities of other members of the terrorist organization, including his brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar. He also admitted knowing "that the PIJ achieved its objectives by, among other means, acts of violence."

For its part, the government acknowledged that Al-Arian's activities were non-violent and that there were no victims to the charge in the plea agreement. Later that day, supporters of Al-Arian stated that the agreement was reached in part to end the suffering of the family and to reunite them in freedom.

Sentencing

U.S. District Judge James Moody sentenced al-Arian to the maximum 57 months in prison and gave him credit for time served. He will serve the balance of 19 months and then be deported, prosecutors said. In his ruling, Moody harshly criticized al-Arian for doing nothing to stop bombings perpetrated by Islamic Jihad. "You lifted not one finger. To the contrary, you laughed when you heard of the bombings," he said. "You are a master manipulator. The evidence is clear in this case. You were a leader of the PIJ."

Grand jury subpoena and hunger strike

Al-Arian has recently refused to testify to a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, in an investigation of the International Institute of Islamic Thought's alleged financing of terror because he believes, "his life would be in danger if he testified." Further, Al-Arian claims he has no information that could further the investigation and his attorneys argued that the grand jury subpoena violates Al-Arian's plea agreement with U.S. prosecutors. In a verbal agreement that appears in court transcripts, federal prosecutors agreed that Al-Arian would not have to testify in Virginia. These arguments were rejected by a federal judge in Florida and Al-Arian (who is diabetic) began a 60-day hunger strike on January 22, 2007, to "protest continued government harassment." As of March 20, 2007, Al-Arian, who is 6-feet tall, had lost 53 of the 202 pounds he weighed when he started his hunger strike.

Film

USA vs. Al-Arian is the 2007 awarding-winning documentary film by Norwegian director Line Halvorsen about Al-Arian's trial.

David Joel Horowitz (born January 10, 1939) is an American conservative writer and activist. A prominent supporter of Marxism and a member of the New Left in the 1960s, Horowitz later rejected Leftism and now identifies with the right wing of the political spectrum. He is a founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (formerly the Center for the Study of Popular Culture), a writer for the conservative magazineNewsMax, and the editor of the popular conservative websiteFrontPageMag.com. He founded the activist group Students for Academic Freedom and is affiliated with Campus Watch, and frequently appears on the Fox News Channel as an analyst.

Early life and career

David Horowitz was born in 1939 to a Jewish family in Forest Hills, New York. His parents, Phil and Blanche Horowitz, were school-teachers in Sunnyside Gardens, in the borough of Queens in New York City. Horowitz attended Columbia University and later the University of California, Berkeley, where he received a master's degree in English literature.

His parents were long-standing members of the Communist Party. While still identifying as a Marxist, Horowitz, along with many other left wing figures of his generation, sought to distance itself from totalitarian regimes such as Soviet Union. Horowitz was employed during the 1960s as a political aide to Bertrand Russell. Horowitz at this time was a close friend and associate of the Marxist historian, Isaac Deutscher. Horowitz wrote a biography of Deutscher in 1971.

Horowitz was a confidant of Black Panthers leader Huey P. Newton, and provided legal and financial assistance to the black revolutionary organization. He would later cite experiences with his involvement in the Panthers as the primary catalyst for reassessing his views. In December of 1974, his close friend Betty Van Patter, a bookkeeper for the Panthers, was murdered. While the case officially went unsolved, Horowitz has maintained that the Panthers were responsible for her murder, committed in order to silence Van Patter from revealing the organization's financial corruption, and thereafter covered up the killing.

Other events that Horowitz cites as being influential in his political realignment were the impacts of the US loss in the Vietnam War on the peoples of Indochina, and particularly Cambodia, which under the leadership of the Khmer Rouge experienced mass terror and famine, leading to millions of deaths. Horowitz believes that the far left turned a blind eye to such atrocities because the ideological vision of the Communists was one which they shared. The reactions ranged from disinterest to apologia, exemplified by George Hildebrand and Gareth Porter's Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution, which presented a much more favorable depiction of life under the Khmer Rouge than later came to be accepted.

Along with close associate Peter Collier, Horowitz hosted a 1987 "Second Thoughts Conference" in Washington, D.C., described by left-wing figure Sidney Blumenthal in The Washington Post as his "coming out" as a supporter of the right. His gradual shift to the right has been recounted in a series of memoirs and retrospectives, culminating in Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey, published in 1996.

Activism on the right

Growing out of their increasing "second thoughts," Horowitz and Collier committed to a new cause; opposing the baby boomer new left status quo in academia. Peter Collier wrote that, "there was only one antidote for the new orthodoxy: Heterodoxy." In 1992, the same year as the election of President Bill Clinton, Heterodoxy magazine was founded.

He became a staunch opponent of affirmative action policies, as well as reparations for slavery. Horowitz also supported the proactive, interventionist foreign policy associated with the "neoconservatives", a label that Horowitz rejects as a smear. FrontPageMag.com, his right-leaning website, carries editorials from many authors who were and are strongly pro-Israel, anti-Islam, supportive of the war on terror and the war in Iraq. However, Horowitz personally opposed American intervention in the Kosovo War, arguing that it was unnecessary and harmful to US interests.

Viewing the political atmosphere of many universities as intolerant of such ideas, he went so far as to purchase, or attempt to purchase, advertising space in school publications in order to get his views and arguments across. Many of these offers were refused and at some schools papers which carried the ads were confiscated or destroyed by protesting campus groups.

In 2004, Horowitz launched Discover the Networks, a conservative watchdog project that monitors funding for, and various ties among, individuals and organizations supportive of leftist causes. Part of the motivation for Discover the Networks is Horowitz's view that leftist individuals and groups support, whether consciously or not, Islamic terrorism, and thus require ongoing scrutiny. This theme is explored in Horowitz's 2004 book, Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left.

An agnostic Jew, Horowitz has rejected the tendency of social conservatives to support laws that discriminate against homosexuals. He criticized the Republican Party for being unwilling to gear itself towards the civil rights of homosexuals, noting that more homosexuals voted for George W. Bush in 2000 than did blacks or Jews. While Horowitz disagrees with gay marriage, he believes homosexuals have a fundamental right to privacy and that the term "homosexual agenda", common among right-wing pundits, is an "intolerant" one.

Academic Bill of Rights

The issue of "political abuse" of the university is currently Horowitz's main focus. In 2004 he, Eli Lehrer and Andrew Jones did a study titled "Political Bias in the Administrations and Faculties of 32 Elite Colleges and Universities." The overall ratio of Democrats to Republicans they were able to identify at the 32 schools was more than 10 to 1 (1,397 Democrats, 134 Republicans, 1891 unidentified). As to administrators, "[i]n the entire Ivy League, we identified only three Republican administrators."

Horowitz's 2006 book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, criticizes individual professors for their professorial conduct. Much of his criticism is aimed at those who are critical of the State of Israel. According to Horowitz, these professors engage in indoctrination rather than a disinterested pursuit of knowledge.

Horowitz and others promote his Academic Bill of Rights (ABR), an eight-point manifesto that seeks to eliminate what they see as political bias in university hiring and grading. Horowitz claims that bias in universities amounts to indoctrination, and charges that conservatives and particularly Republicans are "systematically excluded" from faculties, citing statistical studies on faculty party affiliation. Critics of the proposed policy, such as Stanley Fish, have argued that "academic diversity," as Horowitz describes it, is not a legitimate academic value, and that no endorsement of "diversity" can be absolute.

In 2004 a version of the ABR was adopted by the Georgia General Assembly on a 41-5 vote.

In Pennsylvania, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives created a special legislative committee to investigate the state of academic freedom and whether students who hold unpopular views need more protection. In November 2006 it reported that it couldn’t find evidence of problems with students’ rights.

Criticisms questioning Horowitz's 'liberal bias on campuses' evidence

Some stories Horowitz has used as evidence that U.S. colleges and universities are bastions of liberal indoctrination have been disputed. For example, Horowitz told the story of a University of Northern Colorado student who received a failing grade on a final exam for refusing to write an essay arguing that George W. Bush is a war criminal. A spokeswoman for the university said that the test question was not as described by Horowitz and that there were non-political reasons for the grade, which was not an F. Horowitz responded that the student had indeed received an "F" on the exam but had appealed her grade on the course and been awarded a "B", and that the questions as supplied by UNC were evidence of indoctrination, not education, as claimed.

Horowitz also claimed that a Pennsylvania State University biology professor showed his students the film Fahrenheit 9/11 just before the 2004 election in an attempt to influence their votes. Horowitz later acknowledged that he had not been able to confirm this story.

Finally, Horowitz has referred to the case of a student named Ahmad al-Qloushi, whose professor allegedly responded to an "irrational[ly]" "pro-American" essay by failing him and threatening to visit the Dean of International Admissions (who had the power to take away student visas) to make sure he received regular psychological treatment. His professor admits suggesting al-Qloushi visit a counselor, but for anxiety resulting from events that had happened to al-Qloushi in Kuwait ten years before rather than for his politics, and denies mentioning the Dean.

Horowitz has also come under fire for material in his books, particularly The Professors. For example, Media Matters for America claims that only 48 of the 100 (not 101) professors listed were criticized for in-class behavior and activities, despite Horowitz's claim that he makes "a very clear distinction between what's done in the classroom" and "what professors say as citizens." The group Free Exchange on Campus issued a 50-page report in May of 2006 in which they take issue with many of Horowitz's assertions in the book and describe what they see as factual errors, unsubstantiated assertions, and quotations which appear to be either misquoted or taken out of context.

In response to Horowitz's criticisms of professors at the University of Arizona the campus newspaper and student government had varying opinions. Many on campus saw validity in the claims made by Horowitz and after a few weeks of discussion the student body Senate passed a resolution supporting the free exchange of ideas in academia. While the resolution came short of all out support for Horowitz, the resolution did support many similar issues hailed by Horowitz.

Jacob Laksin has since issued a lengthy, three-part response to this report on FrontPageMag.com, which, among other things, claims that Free Exchange on Campus misrepresents itself as being "disinterested observers". According to Laskin, "The groups comprising the Free Exchange coalition are chiefly distinguished by their partisan commitment to left-wing political causes and their support for the politicized and one-sided academic status quo." Laskin cites member organizations, Campus Progress (which Laskin claims is funded by George Soros), the American Civil Liberties Union and People for the American Way as examples. Laskin also claims the report "misrepresents and distorts the arguments of The Professors in order to attack the book and its author, and is not above fabricating evidence to make its case," and that while the report does identify some errors in Horowitz's book, they are trivial and "in no way affect the substantive arguments of the book or the conclusions drawn in the individual profiles of the professors included."

Other Criticism

Allegations of Bigotry

Chip Berlet, writing for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), identified Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture as one of 17 "right-wing foundations and think tanks support[ing] efforts to make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable." Berlet accused Horowitz of blaming slavery on "'black Africans ... abetted by dark-skinned Arabs'" and of "attack[ing] minority 'demands for special treatment' as 'only necessary because some blacks can't seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others,' rejecting the idea that they could be the victims of lingering racism." Responding with an open letter to Morris Dees, president of the SPLC, Horowitz stated that his reminder that the slaves transported to America were bought from African and Arab slavers was a response to demands that only whites pay blacks reparations, not to hold Africans and Arabs solely responsible for slavery, and that the statement that he had denied lingering racism was "a calculated and carefully constructed lie." The letter said that Berlet's work was "so tendentious, so filled with transparent misrepresentations and smears that if you continue to post the report you will create for your Southern Poverty Law Center a well-earned reputation as a hate group itself." The SPLC refused, and subsequent critical pieces on Berlet and the SPLC have been featured on Horowitz's website and personal blog.

Tim Wise, self-described "anti-racist essayist, lecturer and activist" criticized Horowitz in the left-wing publication, Znet for associating with alleged racists, pointing to his acceptance of funding from the Bradley Foundation, which supported the publication of Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (A Free Press Paperbacks Book), as well for running a modified piece by white nationalist Jared Taylor on the media treatment of black-on-white murders. When Horowitz ran the piece, he admitted that the decision to do so would be controversial, but denied that Taylor was a racist, instead arguing that his "racialism" was an example of identity politics precipitated by an intellectual surrender to multiculturalism; Horowitz denied that he and his publication share the agendas of Taylor.